While our overworked, underpaid and
intentionally understaffed
Border Patrol Agents on the line are doing what they
can to deter the human wave of illegal aliens coming
into our nation, it seems that some here in what remains
of the
America of my youth have taken a decided dislike to
the entire force.

This from the Website of the
U. S. Border Patrol local 2544 in Tucson, Arizona
(note the Patrol Agents union estimate of the number of
illegal aliens in our nation in their opening
"welcome" paragraph):

This is
the type of institutional garbage on-duty Border Patrol
agents have to put up with all the time.........this
moron just got caught red-handed. He gave the agent the
wrong receipt, then tried to take it back. The agent
wisely refused to give it back. We can only assume that
what the "host" wrote on the ticket[A misspelled vulgarity
referring to the Border Patrol] was a signal
to sabotage this agent`s food. Many agents have become
sick after eating in restaurants, and this should be an
eye-opener. A copy of the receipt is posted
here. 4-11-05

In the
"A West Too Wild" editorial, the Editors of the
New York Times, in solemn conclave assembled,
declare, ex cathedra, that President Bush has
"rightly labeled" the Minutemen "vigilantes."
The President`s error is understandable, diction not
being his strong point, but don`t the Editors of the
Holy Times Itself own an office dictionary? The
distinguishing character of the
vigilance committees of the Old West was that they
would punish people, by hanging them, beating them, or
shooting them, without legal sanction or fair trials.
That`s what vigilantism is, and why it`s wrong.

Vigilantism in American history has often been the
result of there being no effective criminal justice
system (for example, in the California mining camps in
the first year or so of the Gold Rush), or where the
criminal justice system was so corrupt that it might as
well have been absent—of which the San Francisco
Vigilance Committee of 1856 is a good example. It formed
after a county supervisor shot to death a newspaper
publisher in front of many witnesses—and the District
Attorney refused to prosecute. The federal government
needs to make a serious effort to secure our
borders, so that people like Haab
[who had made a
citizen`s arrest, but was not part of the Minuteman
Project] aren`t tempted to take the law into
their own hands.

The accused are not
Britons at all,
of course, but United Kingdom citizens of Muslim
ancestry: Dhiren Barot, Nadeem Tarmohamed and Qaisar
Shaffi.

Of course, they may have been born
in Britain (one of them was nicknamed "Esa al-Britani),"but even so the headline should read "Three
Muslims Indicted In Terror Plot" to convey more
useful information.